Hydropathy as applied to acute disease : illustrated by cases / by T. R. Armitage.

  • Armitage, Thomas Rhodes, 1824-1890.
Date:
MDCCCLII [1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hydropathy as applied to acute disease : illustrated by cases / by T. R. Armitage. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    43/192 (page 35)
    be one of commencing typhus, we shall now, believing in the efficacy of the cold affusion, have to make up our minds whether we will use it or not. If, on the one hand, we use it, as it is very possible we have made a mistake in the dia- gnosis, and the disease may be some other in an incipient state, we may have the mortification of seeing that, instead of arresting typhus, we have aggravated the real disease. If, on the other hand, we lean to the side of caution, and have a not unnatural and very excusable repug- nance to dealing heavy blows in the dark, we let slip the favourable opportunity, and it will never return ; for as soon as the symptoms are sufficiently decided to allow of a certain dia- gnosis being made, it is too late to make any attempt to arrest the fever by cold affusion. The only case in which I should feel myself justified in using the affusion for this purpose, is where the patient has been previously healthy, and is known to have been recently exposed to contagion. These circumstances might' so in- crease the probabilities of the complaint being typhus, that it would be right to act on this assumption.